Paul Staines, who blogs as Guido Fawkes, seems very keen indeed to persuade his readers that the public’s right behind him on his pursuit of William Hague over the allegation of improper activities with his former special advisor.
Keen enough, it appears, to take a rather inventive approach when it comes to interpreting the opinion polls.
When you ask a question in a poll and the result comes back as 46% yes, 12% no, most of us would take that as an indication that the public’s in the “yes” camp.
Not Staines. He’s taken all the “don’t knows” – many of whom may not even be aware of the Hague story – and simply added them onto the no camp.
That’s what Guido’s claiming:
46% of people asked think the Foreign Secretary was telling the truth about his relationship with Christopher Myers. That leaves over half the country doubting the Foreign Secretary’s words.
No, it obviously doesn’t.
Here’s the actual opinion poll (pdf, it’s on page 5) and here’s the UK polling report write-up that Guido links to. See what you think.
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15 Comments
Erm, yes it obviously does!
If you do not think he was telling the truth, or you are not sure, then obviously you doubt his words. Rather elementary, I think.
I remember when Staines was cutting edge, the new breed of political blogger.
Didn’t like him even then, but at least he was inventive. Now it’s just lazy playing up to his rabid fanbase of racists, homophobes andtin foil hat wearers (seriously, read some comment threads).
Yawn.
@jayu No it doesn’t. The don’t knows could be anything from ‘I don’t know anything about this so can’t comment’ through ‘I really don’t care whether or not Hague is telling the truth about this’ to ‘Havne’t you got anything more important to ask me about, how the heck should I know whether hague is telling the truth or not?’.
There is no evidence to suggest that any of them doubt his word at all.
I stand by my take, if you don’t know, you can be put in the doubtful set.
Being criticised by LibDems, the documented authors of millions of bar chart misrepresentations does have some irony.
I think the above is the first time I’ve ever seen Guido rise to the bait. Freedom of speech is vital, otherwise how will you know someone’s true character?
Arguing that people who have no opinion on something, in fact actively do have a view – ie that they doubt Hague – is bizarre! People who have no opinion have, er, no opinion.
By Guido’s logic, almost the entire country “doubts” whether he brushed his teeth or not this morning, simply because we have no idea whether he did or not, and have no opinion on the subject. We might “not know” about it, but to argue that we therefore actively “doubt its truth” – as he says most of the country does about Hague’s words – is completely weird.
I have to agree with Liberal Neil here. GuidoFawkes can protest as much as he likes but he is making far too great an assumption about the ‘don’t knows’. He does NOT know, how does that mean he can claim he does?
Maybe he should apply for a job at The News Of The World? It sounds as though he could fit right in.
I suppose that if you perceive polling as a binary activity then you could argue that if 46% agree with something then 54% don’t agree with it. However, I think the really damaging result for Hague is that 43% felt that he had made an error of judgment, 42% that he had not, and 15% didn’t know. A binary analysis would therefore suggest that 57% believe that he had made an error of judgment. This is the most important aspect of the story. If you were a public figure and knew that for years elements of our wonderful press had been trying to prove that you were a homosexual would you really share a double room with a man to save money?
And this man Hague is our Foreign Secretary?
Correction: that should read ‘ would therefore suggest that 58% believe that he had made an error of judgment’
Personally I couldn’t care less about the whole story… that makes me a “doubter”, right?
@Liberal Neil
46% thought an improper relationship did not take place . So, 46% believe Hague. You do not need to be a psephologist to work out that 54% do not believe him, or have failed to be totally convinced. If Staines had said 54% think Hague lied, then Iain Roberts, and yourself, would have a valid point.
@MacK
“However, I think the really damaging result for Hague is that 43% felt that he had made an error of judgment, 42% that he had not, and 15% didn’t know”
I think Hague made an error of judgement. He should have realised that hypocritical, vicious, unprincipled tabloid journalists would misrepresent his actions.
But then, I’ve made errors of judgement. Is there anyone contributing to this thread who hasn’t? Does that mean you’re all unfit to be MPs?
As mistakes go, it was a very minor tactical misjudgement.
Let’s compare it to, say, the financial and property bubble, built up over a decade, that is the main reason for our deficit crisis. Or, running a newspaper in which there is a massive spying operation going on, and you don’t know about it.
Hague’s minor error isn’t a real issue, it’s a miniscule mistake used as cover for homophobic innuendo.
Agree with George Kendall. The main sufferers from the “misjudgment” were Hague and his wife. It’s hardly Profumo.
It is as clear as a pikestaff that Guido distorted the finding of this survey – as demonstrated beautifully above by Jeremy Hargreaves.
The question behind all this is: Why did Guido feel the need to desperately dredge up this poll from the Sunday Times and misconstrue one of its findings?
If Guido was fully comfortable with his conduct on the Hague story, why has he felt the need to justify himself in this strange way?
It is a rather pathetic position to be in.
Re. Jayu’s Binary World: 8,609,527 people voted Labour at the 2010 General Election out of an estimated UK population of 61,113,205. Therefore 85.9% of the people in this country are anti Labour.